Google stepping back from U.S. military AI project

Jun 04, 2018, 8:48 AM EDT

(Source: Kazuhisa OTSUBO/flickr)

Google, under fire for its collaboration with the U.S. Department of Defense for a project that relies on artificial intelligence to analyze drone footage, will not renew the contract after it expires next year.

The move by the internet giant follows outrage among the staff, who called on the company not to pursue “the business of war,” writesThe Daily Star.

The Google-Pentagon partnership for Project Maven has more to it than it meets the eye. The deal is worth $9 million, which is a petty amount against Google’s net worth; instead the project may just be the beginning of a string of tests on adapting private-sector AI for military purposes, notesThe Next Web.